Amanda Urban made this entire enterprise possible. Without her faith this book would not exist. I am incredibly lucky to have had Jon Meacham as an early champion at Random House. Will Murphy and Molly Turpin read and edited the book with enormous skill. I am deeply grateful for their intelligence, care, and encouragement. Sona Vogel is a brilliant and meticulous copy editor.
A century and a half’s worth of journalists, critics, and historians made it easy for a late arrival like myself to wade into this subject. I am indebted to the research and writing of Priscilla J. Brewer, Edward Deming Andrews, Stephen A. Marini, John F. C. Harrison, Arthur Bestor, Lawrence Foster, Carl J. Guarneri, Robert P. Sutton, Lillian M. Snyder, Christopher H. Johnson, Frank E. Manuel, Fritzie P. Manuel, Charles Nordhoff, Robert S. Fogarty, Edmund Wilson, Gilbert Seldes, Donald E. Pitzer, Spencer Klaw, Robert Allerton Parker, Michael Barkun, and A. J. Macdonald.
I am particularly grateful to Anthony Wonderley, curator of the Oneida Community Mansion House, for both his scholarship and his hospitality; Jonathan F. Beecher, at UC Santa Cruz, for saving me from several embarrassing errors about the lives of Charles Fourier and Victor Considerant; Stephen J. Stein, at Indiana University Bloomington, for his remarkable work on the Shakers and his willingness to help a rank amateur; and Saundra Clem Leininger in Corning, for her efforts to keep the memory of Icaria alive.
This book was written at almost a dozen different desks. The nicest two were Lawrence Rinder’s kitchen table in Ukiah and Neal and Karen Latt’s picnic table in Orleans. My yearlong berth at Sterns Consulting was less scenic, but it allowed me to pretend that I had a real job. My thanks to Jim Stearns, Kevin Yee, and Christian Cain for keeping me company.
Dana Dart-Mclean made writing seem fun when it had ceased to be. Colter Jacobsen and Jon Jensen straightened me out on a few Latter-day Saints–related matters. Larissa MacFarquhar offered pages of incisive suggestions. I cannot imagine a better reader. Corrine Fitzpatrick applied her fine-tuned poet’s ear to the manuscript and provided moral support as I crossed the finish line.
For their love and support, I am forever grateful to my family, Tom Depoto, Jonah Stern, Kathryn Sá-Davis, and Buck Mulligan.
I am daily humbled by the guts, idealism, and work ethic of the men and women who populate the preceding pages. They were giants.